Poll Finds Support for Military

By ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press Writer

CONWAY, Wash. (AP) - As the crow flies, this hamlet nestled among Skagit Valley farm houses and strawberry fields is about as distant from the Pentagon as you can get in the continental United States.

Yet when it comes to national defense, folks around Conway, about 60 miles north of Seattle, share with many Americans a mixture of appreciation for the military and the longstanding debate over whether it costs too much.

"We need to have a strong military," says Bruce Morrison. He believes the military enjoys strong public support and has become more closely linked to civilian society since it became an all-volunteer service more than two decades ago.

Still, Morrison's own son, now in college, never considered a career in the military.

"He's got all the opportunity he needs without the military," Morrison, 52, said as he fingered a heaping carton of fresh-picked blueberries at the Snow Goose produce stand along the north fork of the Skagit River.

In random interviews recently with people in and around Puget Sound, it was difficult to find evidence of a "disconnect" with the military that Defense Secretary William Cohen fears may be undermining support for men and women in uniform - a culture gap, some say, that isolates the military.

At a flower shop in the fishing village of Blaine, abutting the Canadian border, 35-year-old Sherry, who declined to give her last name, said she believes a strong military is "just as important as it's always been." She would recommend military service to any young person.

"It's probably one of the most important things you could do," she says.

These views are largely in line with the results of a poll conducted for The Associated Press by ICR of Media, Pa., which asked adult Americans how much confidence they have in their military. Sixty-four percent said they had a "good deal" of confidence and 28 percent had "some" confidence. Only 7 percent had little or no confidence.

The AP poll also asked whether people would support a son or daughter's plan to enter the military. Sixty-six percent said they would be supportive, and 29 percent said they would suggest a different line of work. Five percent did not know.

The poll also indicated:

More than three-quarters said they support a pay raise for the military, while 13 percent oppose it.

About half, 49 percent, support using U.S. troops as peacekeepers overseas, while 42 percent oppose it.

"We need to keep peace or we'll all be at war," said 50-year-old Sheila Hudson of Tulsa, Okla.

"I oppose using troops as peacekeepers," said Ira Smith, a machinist from Jacksonville, Fla. "I don't think the United States should be the world police. Our tax money should be used for protecting our own citizens."

The poll of 1,011 people was conducted Sept. 17-24 by International Communications Research and has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Some people fault the military for wasteful spending. Others, like Richard Owens, say the military simply takes too big a share of taxpayer dollars. Over breakfast with his wife and three daughters at the Captain Whidbey Inn overlooking Penn Cove near Coupeville, Wash., Owens said he believes the military is building weapons it no longer needs.

"I think money in this country should be spent on other things," he said, like social services.

In the AP poll, 47 percent said defense spending should be kept about the same, 34 percent wanted higher spending and 12 percent wanted less. Defense spending for the current budget year is set at $270 billion, and the Clinton administration's longer-range plan is for military spending to rise to $318 billion by 2005.

Early this year, Cohen began a public campaign to "reconnect" America to its military, a sales job he felt necessary to boost understanding of and support for the 1.4 million men and women on active duty. He took his message on the road, starting with an address to the Illinois State Assembly where he made a pitch for military pay raises.

Cohen also visited the Redmond, Wash., headquarters of computer giant Microsoft Corp., an unusual audience for a Pentagon chief.

"I believe there exists a gap between some in this industry and our military," Cohen told his Microsoft listeners.

The gap, he said, is not unique to the high-tech industries but is "indicative of our country." There is a tendency to "dismiss the importance of the national security world," he said, and to conclude that with the Cold War over, "tanks and guns are somehow rusty relics of the past and nearly obsolete in the new information-based world."

That does not fit with the views of Tom Holum, 43, who lives on the south end of Whidbey Island, just west of Everett. He thinks the military plays an important role in America's economic security, and he believes young people still are attracted to the military for high-tech skills that are transferable to the civilian job market.

On the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle, Kristi Beck, a 20-year-old psychology major, said she admires the men and women who serve in the military but never seriously considered it as a possible career path.

"I didn't like the idea of having to move around a lot," she said.